


Berlin

by StAnni



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 12:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18475963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: “We’re booking two tickets out of this Uwe Boll hell-scape, right the fuck now, El”





	Berlin

She has been waiting an hour, not wanting to loiter around the streets of Berlin any more than necessary and secluded herself in what she deemed to be the safest corner of a road-side café. 

He walks from the east, jacket slung over his shoulder, just the tip of a smile on his face, and she sighs an inward sigh of relief. 

It’s only been a month since El left Boston, since the everything went down the proverbial shitter.

It was a mission in itself to track Eliot down after that, and then a whole other argument to convince him to let her come all the way to Berlin.

His cheek is smooth as he brushes hers with a kiss and his cologne is expensive, showy. It’s not something he would have worn back in Boston.

“Bambi.” He purrs to her as he sits down and she smiles, “I ordered you a mysterious concoction from the Gin bar, which I was very happy to learn they have even in Germany.” to which he smiles, taking a sip from her own cocktail “Nobody compares.”

It takes a beat or so for his eyes to settle, for his shoulders to relax and her heart sways with every time that his lashes dip for a moment too long. And they haven’t even gotten to the real stuff yet. 

She holds her breath for a second and he notices, he even gives her an “it’s okay” to which she smiles, a smile that creases painfully at her heart. They need to live closer to each other.  
“So what are you doing here, El?” her hand is just an inch away from his own on the table – there if he needs it. But he doesn’t take it. He breathes out and gives an easy smile - but then smiles are easy for him - before he looks away. 

“Not sure yet.” He says and his voice so clear, so evenly gentle – that anyone would think that everything is sunny skies above a clear glass ocean. Anyone would think that, but she knows him – she can see the way that his fingers tap-tap quietly against the arm of his chair – the way that his smile is held in place at the edges – just so and just for show. 

“Well, I’m worried about you,” She says, leaning forward – her voice serious. “You know, it’s okay to be angry, to be hurt.” 

He gives, a short, non-committal shrug and his eyes are narrowed against the sun – unreadable. “To what end?” He asks, his voice still clear, almost upbeat – but with edge there – something burning at the periphery. “So I’m angry. So I’m hurt. What then?”

She changes her tactic because, honestly, she doesn’t have an answer “But fucking Berlin?”  
And as if to make her argument for her a mangle of drunken, ugly, German men stumble down the bleak sidewalk next to them. 

That at least, elicits a real smile and he shakes his head, chuckles and off her are-you-fucking- kidding-me look “It’s not that bad.” 

“Not that bad?” She asks “You’ve seen Berlin Syndrome right?” 

He sighs, giving her a settling smile “It’s better than being there. Seeing…him. It’s better here, Bambi.”

Eliot, for all his luster and sanded edges, eloquence and allure, has never been not-broken. Since their first exchange, their first laugh, their first fuck she has always known that his waters run deep and dark. It is not new to see him sad, or damaged or even shattered.

But she has never seen him ruined – so ground to dust that he couldn’t even say a name.

“Quentin fucked up.” She says, maybe just to have Eliot hear his name, and at his name she sees the movement at his jaw, the anger there. “Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.” He answers, quickly, drawbridge pulling up, crocodiles flooding the moat. 

“El, baby,” Margo tries, because she has to, because this cannot be it, she is not going to watch her best friend towering himself the fuck up in fucking Germany of all places “You have got to pull yourself together, alright?”

Her voice is low and he watches her, his eyes so guarded that it clenches around her heart. These fucking boys.

“It’s not like it’s been smooth sailing for the two of you.” She continues to negotiate. And it’s Eliot, and he’s no fool, immune to her skills, so his eyes are steeled against her tough love, but fuck it. “And whose to say it won’t change again.”

The truth is a bitch and nothing is a story that makes sense all the way through. “People fall in and out of love all the time, El. You know this. We’ve done this.”

At that Eliot blinks, the wince is imperceptible. But hey, hard truths. “He’s got the emotional intelligence of a tween, El, cut him some slack – we both know you’ve let things slide before.”

“I’m sorry, you flew all the fucking way here to take his side?” Eliot snaps, folding his arms and leaning back – his eyes glinting brown and angry in the sun. 

They’ve had conversations like this before. Maybe not about Quentin, and maybe not to these extremes, but these territories are not new. “No, El.” She reaches for his hand, stiff in the fold of his elbow “I’m just here to tell you it’s not over, so no use packing your shit up yet.”

He looks away but he allows her touch and his skin is warm – so there, so Eliot. Quentin really is a fucking idiot sometimes.

“He’ll come around. And you’ll come around. And it will probably get fucked again. But it’s you and it’s Q, and it’s just fucking timing, you know.”

He does know. She can tell. Thank fuck. He does know. 

Admittedly, with Quentin, the talk was a little more granular, wading through a sea of man-child angst and guilt – fucking pulling teeth.

But he knew as well. Eventually.

So now everyone can pull their diapers up and get back to fucking normal.

Eliot’s lashes are black, so long and curved that she remembers how they feel against her thumb.  
He looks at her, and although his eyes are tired, she sees him there, her Eliot, as he tilts head. 

“We’re booking two tickets out of this Uwe Boll hell-scape, right the fuck now, El”

There is a smile, and it is real. “I love you, Bambi.”


End file.
